


Bigfoot Capital of the East

by theneonpineapple



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24215206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theneonpineapple/pseuds/theneonpineapple
Summary: (Abandoned, unfinished fic.) Dani, Aubrey, and Jake try to keep Stern off Barclay's trail, but not by pretending not to know about Bigfoot - by pretending to be his biggest fan.
Relationships: Barclay/Agent Stern (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	Bigfoot Capital of the East

**Author's Note:**

> Found this in my drafts. It's yours now, fandom.

“So I hear you’re looking for Bigfoot,” Dani said.

Stern looked up at her. His eyes widened slightly as he took in the fact that someone was actually voluntarily talking to him about his mission here in Kepler.  _ No wonder she kept looking at me during lunch yesterday _ . “Yes, that’s right. Do you know something?”

She fidgeted a little and glanced away. “I - you’re not going to hurt em, are you? The Bigfoots? Ned says it’s Bigfeet but I think that’s dumb. Um. Gosh, don’t tell Ned I was here?” She pleaded.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Stern said, which was technically true, he just didn’t anticipate Bigfoot being easy to apprehend without violence. “Why don’t you sit down? It’s Dani, right?”

“That’s right. Okay. And you promise you’re not gonna hurt them? Because they’re really nice, okay, there’s a whole family of them that live in the woods. I think it must be even more than a family, to have a full breeding population, but Kirby says they tend to live for a really long time and Victoria, she owned the Cryptonomica before Ned, she said she thought they reproduced asexually but that’s rare in multicellular organisms and I asked her, have you ever seen Bigfoot budding?”

Stern couldn’t even get a word in edgewise until she took a breath, and he said, “Dani, have you actually seen Bigfoot?”

“Oh, yeah, loads of times,” she nodded emphatically. “Sometimes they have drum circles? One time Aubrey and had some hash brow--hash-browns,” she interrupted herself, flushing a little. “Uh, hash-browns, like potatoes, um, that’s not relevant, and anyway we stumbled across this drum circle and it was amazing and--”

The door to the lobby opened and Aubrey came in with her rabbit on a leash and harness, and the minute she saw them she threw Dani a look of absolute betrayal. “You’re talking to the feds? About the Bigfoots? Dani, we promised!”

“He says he’s not gonna hurt them, he needs to know - listen, Agent Stern sir, they’re really nice, okay? I don’t know what disappearances you’re looking into but the Bigfoots are a gentle creature--”

“You think a fed’s gonna believe you? If he even is a fed, I’ve shown you that stuff on Men In Black, he’s probably an alien--”

Stern had two, horrifying thoughts. One was that the very first person who’d been willing to talk to him at all was absolutely useless. The other was that he now knew why Aubrey Little had reacted so weirdly to him.

“Babe, he seems really nice, I think we can trust him.”

“I--” Aubrey rubbed the back of her neck as Dani looked at her with big, round eyes. “Dammit, you know I can’t, that’s not fair,” said Aubrey.

“What’s not fair?”

“Your face.”

“My face isn’t fair?”

“Yes?” Aubrey’s voice lilted up in a question. But she picked up her rabbit and came to sit down with them. “All right, secret agent man. If Dani thinks you’re cool then… Welcome to Kepler. We’re the Bigfoot capital of the east.”

_ I’m in hell _ , Stern thought.

-

“It’s Jake, right?” Stern said.

Jake Coolice looked up at him, and his eyes went wide. “You’re the secret agent!”

“I’m - it’s not a secret. I introduce myself as Agent Stern.”

“All right, Secret Agent Stern, what can I do for you?”

“Have you ever heard or seen anything here in Kepler that seemed strange?”

“Yesterday I heard Ned Chicane ask why we don’t put strawberries on pizza,” said Jake. 

Stern was going to start walking away every time someone said Ned Chicane’s name because every sentence that started with “Ned Chicane says” was another sentence he could’ve gone his whole life without hearing. “I meant more, like, strange things in the woods.”

“Have you met Duck?” Jake asked.

“That’s Ranger Newton?” He clarified, in case Duck was a common name here for some reason.

“Yeah!”

“Yes, I’ve met Duck.” But Jake didn’t say anything else, so he prompted, “Has Duck… seen something?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Then why…?”

“I see Duck in the woods a lot.”

Stern considered this. To be fair, Duck wore a metal belt with a mouth for a buckle  _ and _ suspenders. “Okay,” he said. “I meant more. Have you seen Ned’s video, Jake?”

“The TV show highlight reel, the one where he and Aubrey reenact classic Vines, or the one with Bigfoot?”

“The Bigfoot one.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

“Have you ever seen anything like that?”

“Oh, sure, I’ve seen Bigfoot.”

“You have?”

“We raced one time.”

“You raced Bigfoot?”

“He was skiing. Wearing a big old parka and a helmet and everything. I beat him, though. Totally shredded it. It was  _ rad _ .”

Stern took a moment to process this. “You raced Bigfoot?”

“Sure did. I think they’re called yahoos, though. Or maybe yetis? It was on a mountain. Hey, what’s the rule? Is it yeti if they’re in the mountains?”

“Yetis are white and only live in the Himalayas - I’m sorry, you’re saying Bigfoot was skiing and you beat him in a ski race?”

“Oh, no. I don’t ski. I’m strictly into ‘boardin’.”

There was a headache forming behind Stern’s eyes. “Okay,” he said. “Um, tell me more about that.”

-

“Shit, man, you should ask Barclay about New Years,” said Aubrey, over lunch. Jake, Aubrey, and Dani all sat with him at lunch now. He was going to talk to Barclay about getting lunch brought to his room. That’s what he needed to talk to Barclay about.

Dani smacked Aubrey’s arm. “I never should’ve told you about New Years,” she said. “You know he doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“It’s true,” said Jake, as an aside to Stern. “He likes to pretend he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What happened at New Years?” Stern asked, reaching for his notebook.

“Someone spiked the punch at last year’s New Year’s Eve party,” Dani explained. “Aubrey wasn’t here then, so she’s only heard about this through me and Jake, but… we went outside and were doing Bigfoot mating calls? As a joke.”

“Kinda rude, in hindsight,” said Jake, musingly.

Aubrey shrugged.

“We also did Mothman calls,” Dani added. “Well, anyway, the thing is. Barclay’s got the deepest voice so we got him to do one and when  _ he _ did it - it actually sounded kinda like a Bigfoot? And one came rushin’ outta the woods.”

“We all ran inside,” said Jake.

“But one of the Bigfoots toooootally wanted to mate with Barclay,” Aubrey said.

Stern had read thousands of pages of forums and theories and research into Bigfoot calls and desperately wanted to explain to the how Bigfoot calls  _ actually _ worked but. They were the only people who were willing to talk to him, and if he upset parts of a small town there was always a risk the whole town would turn on him. Especially since everyone loved Jake Coolice.

So instead: “I’m gonna go talk to him now,” he said, a little too quickly.

“Ooooh,” Aubrey said.

“It wasn’t me!” Dani said. “She told you!”

“He’s gonna break something dropping it,” Jake said.

Stern made his escape into the kitchen as quickly as possible, and Barclay spun around and stared at him.  _ Shit _ . Escaping to the kitchen meant he actually did have to talk to Barclay, about a very weird story. Shit, shit, shit.

“Uhh,” said Barclay. “Hello?”

“I apologize, I really should’ve knocked,” Stern said. “I kind of got ambushed by--”

And immediately Barclay sighed. “Aubrey?”

“She had Dani and Jake with her,” he said.

“Yeah, they’re all good kids separately, but all together they’re kind of trouble,” he said, his voice unmistakably fond. And slightly exasperated.

“They wanted me to ask you about something that happened to you - although it seems to be half secondhand and half the result of some intoxication. Which is fine, who hasn’t over-indulged a little on New Year’s,” he was rambling now, but he really didn’t want to insult anyone, and Barclay made him nervous. 

Not because he was attractive. Stern was a professional, after all. It was just that Barclay was sort of quiet, and polite, and probably the nicest to him out of everyone but also looked at him like he expected Stern to hurt him and that was kind of… weird. 

Stern  _ didn’t _ want to hurt anyone, and he didn’t like being feared, but despite his best efforts Barclay always looked like that around him and it made him feel, frankly, like a dick. Even though he hadn’t done anything.

So now Stern couldn’t even speak to the man without tripping over himself second guessing how everything he said sounded. Because he wanted Barclay to revise whatever initial impression seemed to have convinced him he was a dick. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Barclay said.

Cool and polite, and with an undercurrent of discomfort. He’d looked into Barclay, purely curious, and had found that Barclay B. Clay, in addition to having the worst name ever published since Stern’s own name, had had a perfectly ordinary life, filed his taxes on time, and got A’s and B’s in middle school and high school, except for one C in Geometry. 

He’d had no run-ins with the law, was the thing, and had never filed any police reports either.  _ Why are you like this?  _ Stern wanted to ask, and not for the usual reasons he wanted to ask Kepler residents that.

“They said you’d say that,” Stern said.

“Of course they did,” sighed Barclay.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to - you seem uncomfortable around me,” Stern said before he could stop himself.

Barclay looked very much like a deer in the headlights and Stern cursed himself for actually doing the absolute worst possible thing to compound the issue: bringing it up. “I - I’m very comfortable around you.”

“No offense, but that’s the worst lie I’ve ever heard.”

“Really? Haven’t you talked to--” And then he shut his mouth, and the brief bit of mischief that had been in his face was gone. Damn. The fondness for the kids earlier, and the teasing look there, it was like Barclay was used to being an open book, and it was Stern in particular he had to remember to close himself off around.

“Were you gonna say Ned?”

Barclay nodded.

“Ned’s a very good liar, it’s just that literally everyone knows he’s a liar,” said Stern. “You’re just a bad liar.”

“Did you just come in here to tell me the kids were bothering you and insult my ability to lie?”

“Yeah, actually, I came in here to see if you could give me a drink to wash it down next time I put my foot in my mouth,” Stern said.

He got a little chuckle, quickly stifled, and was struck with the bizarre urge to stomp his foot.

“See? Every time I even sort of manage to get you to smile, a second later it’s like you remember you hate me, and I’m just - I’m trying to figure out what I  _ did _ .”

Barclay sighed and leaned against the sink, arms folded. He was still wearing his dishwashing gloves. They were yellow, with gingham cuffs that clashed horrifically with the rolled up sleeves of his plaid shirt and something about it made Stern desperately want this man to like him. There was just some softness to Barclay that he didn’t get to see but could tell lurked under the surface and it was driving him insane. He blamed his natural curiosity - it was part of his job, after all, to be curious.

“It’s nothing personal,” said Barclay.

Stern groaned. “So it is something.”

“Maybe a little.”

“Is there anything I can do to fix whatever I did to make you not like me?”

“I don't hate you,” said Barclay. 

“But you are uncomfortable around me.”

Barclay shrugged a little, helplessly, and Stern’s stomach sank. 

“Why?”

“It's personal. Not - not about you. It's just me.”

“It's not me, it's you?” Stern said. 

Barclay offered a little smile in response to the clear attempt at a joke, but it wasn't genuine at all. “Sorry,” he said. “I'd elaborate, but…”

“It's personal,” said Stern. “Yeah.”

With the conversation come to such an obvious and awkward end, Barclay turned back to the soapy dishwater and retrieved a copper pot. “Hey, what was it they were telling you about, anyway?”

“Oh. I was just going to ask if it's true Bigfoot tried to mate with you.”

Barclay fumbled the copper pot and it clattered loudly. 

There was a pause. And then, “WE TOLD YOU,” Aubrey yelled. 

Stern picked up the pot and handed it to Barclay, feeling himself growing almost as red as Barclay’s face was getting. “I'm sorry,” he said. “It's a dumb thing to ask. It's my job, is the thing.”

Barclay took the pot, and now the polite mask was firmly in place even if he was flushed. “I know,” he said. 

And it almost sounded like that was the problem.   
  



End file.
